Eldritch Exorcist

The break between sessions was coming to an end when it happened. We were all ready to take our seats—some still talking in small groups near the center, others using the sound-blocking enchantments to speak in private. The Pope and the high cardinals were already seated in their chairs.

I was in my spot, smiling to myself at how everything was going, even though I felt tired and the call from the dreamlands was slowly but surely trying to pull down my eyelids. The strange song of the abyss was there in the background, sounding oddly like a lullaby. My curiosity about what it would show wasn’t helping, but I didn’t want to fall asleep and then be woken in the middle of the visions.

Then came a low, reverberating thump, accompanied by dust falling from the ceiling. The sound was followed by a low vibration spreading through the whole room—not enough for the candelabras to fall over, but enough for everyone to feel it in their bodies.

We all looked around, at one another, and then at the Pope. The man looked just as baffled before turning to the mortal world’s Pope and then to the other cardinals. Their expressions weren’t any different—everyone looked equally bewildered. I got up and approached my friends, all of us meeting in the space in front of the seating area.

“What was that?” asked Luna.

“That’s how explosions sound underground,” Darius said, his voice sure. “But we are very deep. It would have to be a massive one to be felt this far below.”

“Maybe something here has collapsed?” William proposed. “Those halls haven’t been used properly in quite some time, and the Vatican’s underground was said to hold an entire second city—maybe something came down.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said, unsure.

“Well,” Q’Shar said in a low, measured voice. “We should soon—”

But he didn't finish as another explosion rocked the hall. This time, there wasn’t any confusion, as the sound was much closer, coming from the massive entrance on the raised podium, the one through which the Pope came.

Some people still in the connected banquet hall ran into the room, trying to see what was going on. From the door behind the Pope, paladins dressed in thick, enchanted steel armor poured in—the Pope’s private protection detail. Oddly enough, a few of them stopped closer to the mortal world’s Pope, and Clementus II simply joined them. Everyone looked around, asking what was going on. Confusion was ever-present.

Then a priest stumbled into the room from the door behind the Pope. He looked bad—dust mixed with blood on his face, and it ran down, leaving white-and-red streaks across his forehead.

“Your Excellency,” he said, almost out of breath.

Then the silencing runes shone, and his voice vanished, but they soon faded as the high judge approached, shouting for order. After a few seconds of confusion, Clementus approached the podium and spoke.

“An unidentified explosion collapsed the upper corridors connecting us to St. Peter’s Cathedral. The paths leading to the upper Vatican have been blocked. We are not sure about the victims.”

Chaos erupted in the room. Shouts, whispers, and questions could be heard all around.

“What do you mean, blocked? How could you let that happen?” screamed someone from the crowd.

Others agreed. A slight panic settled in the space. I quickly looked over the people around me, making sure everyone was here. I didn’t like where this was going.

“Please don’t panic. We are trying to understand what is happening. The corridor from which you came is unscathed—we are not boxed in. Please stay calm and let us work.”

There were shouts here and there as people began to funnel toward the banquet hall slowly. The corridor where the buses drove was built like a sturdy bunker, but was that a good thing? Its existence wasn’t exactly a secret to anyone who was at a Sabbath.

“We going?” Darius asked, jerking his head towards the exit to the banquet room.

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly.

I tried going over the layout in my head. There was a passage going from here straight to the banquet hall. Further on was the connection to the massive room where buses stopped, along with a small labyrinth of technical rooms, kitchens, storage rooms, and other spaces used to run the meeting from the servants’ side.

Where the Pope came out and disappeared into, from what I understood, was the older part—the one connected to St. Peter’s Basilica—an ancient labyrinth of corridors, halls, and many Vatican secrets.

“You think it’s the mortal world?” William proposed, but Q’Shar shook his head.

“No. Normal explosions wouldn’t collapse those corridors. And the mortal-world part of the church has a lot of experience dealing with bomb threats—they wouldn’t mess up before a meeting like this. The only explanation is something outside the mundane—magic, most likely.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “But still, they aren’t amateurs and have the manpower. Both popes looked confused when the explosion happened. I don’t like it…”

We stood still as everyone slowly made their way towards the buses. It wasn’t a panicked retreat, but the atmosphere was tense.

“Let’s go—but slowly,” I said. “If they boxed us in from one side, then it leaves the other side open for an ambush,” I added, hoping to the abyss that I was wrong.

Then there was a stir at the front. Something strange must have happened, judging by the raised voices. It wasn’t anything too bad—no one was panicking—people just looked confused, gazing at one another with frowns etched on their faces.

And then I sensed it.

Mana.

Someone was pumping a high concentration of ambient mana into the room, most likely from multiple broken high-density crystals. My confusion grew as I stopped my friends from proceeding. Why would someone pump mana into the hall?

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“Watch out for me,” I whispered to Darius and Myhur, and seeing them stand with their backs to me, I closed my eyes and attuned to the magic. I could feel the presence of my magic’s manifestation—if I opened my eyes, I would see her standing in the crowd. But I ignored her and instead tried reading anything from the energy.

And… I got nothing.

I thought it might be some sort of poisoned mana or some substance pretending to be it—or maybe a strange attunement, anything out of the ordinary, really—but no. It was just ambient mana.

Why? What was going on? I could see the growing commotion as some people moved farther toward the hall door leading to the buses. Some Vatican servants and personnel were running around trying to get everything under control, but they were having mixed results.

“Should we evacuate?” Q’Shar asked, now riding on Bakari’s back.

I—I don’t—” And then it hit me. Ambient mana, one possible exit and entrance…

“No. Move back,” I commanded. I didn’t have time for explanations, so I just said, “Prepare to go around and into the tunnel. If not, go into the labyrinth of corridors after the Pope. And remember: Overdraw your casting—it will feel different.”

“What are you—” Luna prepared to ask, but then we all heard it.

Organ music—fast, strong, dark, and cacophonous. But it wasn’t normal music.

“Social casters,” William whispered with wide eyes.

Before we could do anything, another explosion rang out—this time close—as it ripped open the doors leading to the hall where the buses stood. I could also hear a distinct pop before the loud impact. A pop and the deafening boom… I’d read something about that.

But I had no time to ponder as the music became clear and, with it, the mana’s attunement shifted. It was a blend of death and poison, as well as something else—something personal.

As the doors flew open, we saw a procession make its way from the shadows of the underground path. A group of masked men and women in long dark robes marked with a wide, open eye. Behind them moved a massive platform. Countless naked, starved people carried it—their backs bending under the weight of the platform, each step seeming like they were about to collapse, but that wasn’t allowed by the chains securing them to the construction at their necks.

On it rode an orchestra, with a massive dark organ at the front, playing the music. The instrument was made from black steel and decorated with countless candles, lighting it up against the corridor’s gloom. The candelabras were made to look like people laughing in joy, the flowing wax mimicking white tears falling down the carved faces.

The procession was lightly obscured by red mist, left in the wake of the explosion at the door. In front of the procession walked two men: one with a sewn mouth and another with sewn eyes.

It was impressive, but it was only a spectacle. I didn't understand what was going on. There were hundreds of people here—all mages, most of them the best the world had to offer. Even counting the slaves, their side was barely two hundred people—nowhere near enough to deal with those present, and no extremely powerful signature could be felt. This couldn’t be just a simple attack.

“Who the fuck are you?” asked someone from the front, a member of the Third Chamber—a massive man with slightly feline facial features. The procession didn’t stop, and I could feel people preparing for battle—some even smirking at what looked like easy kills.

“Should we attack?” Darius asked. But he wasn’t eager. The brute wasn’t an idiot—he knew something was wrong.

A pop before the explosion. It bothered me. How did they get the explosives in place? How could they go under the radar? A pop and then the boom—a pop and then…

And it hit me, remembering the woman at the reception who wore contact lenses like mine.

“Get away from the Vatican servants!” I roared over the crowd, then waved my friends back into the auditorium, away from the servants who had been running all over the place, now mixed into the crowd.

Those who had time cast shielding spells. Others ran. Those not quick enough were devoured by red, firefly-like explosions as the servants’ bodies burst apart. After each pop, a red mist was left hanging in the air. I could tell it was a poison of sorts now that I was closer to it. The strange music clearly tuned the mana to the poison in the air, so after the explosions, the mist not only lingered but also grew. An alchemical substance made for mass killing. Thankfully, it didn’t seem strong enough to kill outright—more like a way to add to the chaos.

We moved back into the auditorium, and the robed people used that opening to press on, running into the red mist without hesitation. I focused and cast Decay. The moment my magic materialized, I felt the additional strain—my mana wanted to dance to the music instead of listening to me.

“Calm,” I commanded in my second tongue for the magic around me to fuck off from mine—and felt the strain lift. I then lobbed my spell at a charging man. It hit him square in the chest and began working through his body. The man still charged forward, a zealot eager to die for his cause.

I could see Vatican servants trying to flee the procession and reach us, but they were getting killed before they could make it. There were good fighters in the crowd, but even they didn't have time to find out whose side the servants were on, so they killed and maimed as a precaution.

The banquet hall was by now almost entirely filled with the red mist as we retreated into the auditorium.

‘What now?’ I wondered, looking for a solution.

The zealots' silhouettes came into focus as they walked out from the red mist, not even flinching—either immune to the poison or in a state where they didn’t care if it was working its way through their veins.

‘Why the auditorium?’

We were clearly pushed in here. I looked around for any servants, trying to remember where they sat, where they were before. But they shouldn’t have access to the hall—the only time I saw them was when they carried in the small podium for the speeches…

Cutting Storm

I fired at the podium, standing to the side, and saw the spell cut wood and flesh. Red liquid splashed everywhere as pieces of both the construction and the person hidden in its base fell to the floor.

“Shield—towards the seats!” screamed Q’Shar, realising something, and without any thought, I used second-circle mana to put up a Shield.

“Aegis of Rot!” Myhur shouted to help with casting, and I felt an area in front of my spell go still as a death-energy pane appeared. Finally, Luna put up a blood wall next to us as runes on the audience area lit up.

In the split second, I could see that they were seals set to trigger when specific magic touched them—the mana attunement caused by the organ being the release mechanism, I bet. The front panels under the seating popped open, and I saw them—right before the explosion.

Bodies stuffed into the small, hidden spaces. Spaces no one would check for enemies, as there was no way a human could fit there. They were in the wooden decorations, in the flat carvings, and in the side panels—there, stuffed inside, were mutilated bodies, barely alive—only torsos left, their eyes hollow and empty. I could see a flicker of relief on the face of a young Italian man—right before they all exploded.

The shockwave slammed into our shields and redirected upwards, still throwing a few people away. Then the red poison followed, meeting Myhur’s rot and seemingly killing off the substance, causing it to turn black and drop down.

“Corpse explosion.” What was a guess before was a fact now—the pop came as the artificial soul tore, causing the vitality in the flesh to burst. But those weren’t zombies or corpses—those looked like living people.

I didn’t have time to guess how it was done as a shockwave hit us from the direction of the pope’s speaking area. Then a group of the robed men broke off from the main procession and used the clearing left by the seating area's explosion to close the distance.

And the chaotic battle began in earnest.